Her hands shaking, she opened Clarion’s door without knocking and stepped inside. She froze as she heard Arturo’s voice on a secured, untraceable line.

“I don’t care what you do with that little bastard. Cut him into pieces. Feed him to your sister. Flush him through an airlock. Whatever. I don’t pay ransoms to terrorists. Nor do I negotiate. As far as I’m concerned, he was dead the minute you took him. So shove your ransom demand up your ass and don’t waste my time again.” The counselor cut the transmission.

Stunned, Clarion cursed as he sat back in his chair.

Zarya couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. The cold, harsh brutality.

Kere had been right. The counselor had no heart whatsoever. How could anyone be that viciously callous about the life of their own family?

The same man who killed your mother and sister for daring to ask for mercy for your father…

But that wasn’t what concerned her most. By their actions today, her men had broken numerous League laws. And that was something that carried a harsh death sentence should they ever fall into League custody.

“Why did you shoot the princess?”

Clarion swung around in his chair like he was ready for battle. His features relaxed as he saw her. “I didn’t. The prince did.”

“What do you mean?”

Clarion pulled her tricom off his belt and set it on the desk in front of him.

Fury tore through her as she felt her waist to find it gone. “What exactly did you do?”

“After you told me what it was this morning, I borrowed it for today. Just in case. Boy, was I right and glad we had it.”

Disgust for him overwhelmed her. That’s what you get for having a thief as your second in command. He’d sworn to her that he was reformed. Obviously, he was as much a liar as he was a thief. “Are you completely insane?”

A tic started in his jaw. “Hey, the little prick opened fire on us. Had we not had it, one of us wouldn’t have come home. Would you rather we be hurt?”

Reminding herself that she couldn’t show her emotions or else she’d be replaced as their leader, she took it off his desk, and counted to ten. The one thing she hated about being Caronese, they were a patriarchal race and in the mind of most men, women didn’t belong in the military or in politics. And as leader of the Resistance, she was neck deep in both.

Still, she wanted to beat him for what he’d done. “Of course not, but you had no right to take this from me. It wasn’t designed for you.”

“Sue me, then, okay? Besides we have bigger problems.” Clarion sat back in his chair. “What do I do with a prince no one wants?”

“I don’t know, Captain Intelligent. You were the mastermind behind this fiasco. Fix it.”

Clarion rolled his eyes. “How?”

Like she had a clue? “I’ll talk to Kere and see what he thinks. Maybe the Sentella has something we can use to wipe his memory and we can dump him somewhere that they can find him.”